Michael Jacobson vs. Stephen Colbert?
August 16, 2007
Several people have sent me the link to the video of Michael Jacobson’s appearance on the Colbert Report. Jacobson is the director of Center for Science in the Public Interest, the venerable organization for healthy nutrition policy. Take a look at it and let me know how do you think he did.
I think he did a good job - represented his ideas well & kept up with the banter. It was a good segment.
Comment by succubus — August 16, 2007 @ 5:37 pm
A very good job with a very distracting, and funny, interviewer. Everyone on need to be put up in this kind of forum. Especially the food company executives.
Comment by Mark D. — August 16, 2007 @ 7:04 pm
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Pingback by University Update - Stephen Colbert - Michael Jacobson vs. Stephen Colbert? — August 16, 2007 @ 8:17 pm
I was struck by the fact that Colbert never once mentioned Jacobson’s book, or held it up, despite the fact that it was sitting right there on his desk. Can’t imagine that Jacobson’s publisher was too pleased about that!
Comment by kat — August 17, 2007 @ 2:05 pm
Jacobson bombed. Big time. Oh boy did he bomb. He clearly had no idea that the show was a 100% saturated satire comedy.
Marion, I know you have had a long association with the CSPI and I have enjoyed (& respected) much of your books despite this. I lost faith in the CSPI years ago. CSPI isn’t scientific, isn’t in the public’s interest, and isn’t a good place to look for dietary advice. So, admittedly, I am a bit biased against Jacobson and CSPI.
Aside from his usual flavorless demeanor, lack of preparedness, and complete lack of humor or self-deprication (which is needed in healthy doses on a show like The Colbert Report), he presented the worst possible choices of what is “bad” in the American food system, so it is so easy to ridicule him. So even if a viewer was sympathetic to him, by singling out saturated fat and salt as his dietary demons, it only served to show how out of date, out of touch, and biased he (and CSPI) is when it comes to food, diet, and health.
I subscribed to CSPI’s newsletter for a number ou years, before I put my critical thinking cap back on and realized that CSPI is one of the reasons the US food supply became so full of trans fats (starting with the movie theater popcorn changing from saturated coconut fat, which if not hydrogenated is a healthy fat) and then moving on to blackmail the fastfood industry into changing from stable beef tallow frying oil to hydrogenated vegetable oil, the very trans fats that Jacobson is now frothing at the mouth about). Heck, Jacobsen at one point even said that the trans fats were a good compromise in order to reduce saturated fat. A few years ago (perhaps it was when I felt less well following the CSPI diet recommendations), I could see that CSPI’s emperor has no clothes. They want us to eat vegetarian low fat diets, which is decidedly unhealthy for me (& most others, especially children). Reducing grains and sugars, cooking more from scratch, and getting enough fat (especially traditional saturated fats) and protein, and bypassing the grocery store for much of our food (as direct from the farmer as possible) has been a good move for our family.
Well, it is becoming abundently clear that the war on saturated fat was a wrong turn and it is taking us a heckuva long time to get back.
Jacobsen, even if he couldn’t manage humorous banter with Colbert, at least could have mentioned the damage that excessive consumption of sugars (including but not limited to high fructose corn syrup) and refined grains is causing, instead of saturated fat and salt. In fact, his war on fat could even be psssible for some of that increase in excessive carbohydrate consumption and weight gain over the last couple of decades. At least mentioning sugar and refined grains would have deposited some useful kernal of info in the brains of the viewers who were laughing at him, instead of his silly list of food demons.
Or, he could have said that our agricultural subsidies, whichput the emphasis on big, industrial corpoorate farms and cheap, plentiful soy, corn, and grain, are ruining the diet of America (in fact ruining any sense of regional or national cuisine that America ever had). The Farm Bill would have been a another item to finger, not saturated fat and salt.
Perhaps he should be a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, who while humorous, isn’t a 100% comedy show like The Colbert Report is. Then again, I’d rather not ruin my enjoyment of The Daily Show either.
Comment by Anna — August 29, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=913
Great post on Dr. Mike’s Eades’ blog on the Jacobon/Colbert segment.
See, I’m not the only one who thinks Jacobson is a boob.
Comment by Anna — August 29, 2007 @ 3:20 pm
You must be joking when you call CSPI a “venerable organization for healthy nutrition policy.” Aren’t they the folks who brought us the trans fat french fry?
Comment by Migraineur — November 16, 2007 @ 7:37 pm
Anna, your views on this subject are highly biased and your information is incorrect. Calling Jacobson a “boob” is immature and completely unnecessary. this man has done more for this country and the publics interest than I’m sure you could ever dream of. Some of his accomplishments include:
putting nutrition labels on foods at the grocery store
Putting nutrition information in every restaurant in New York.
he warned the public about olestra
put health warnings on alcoholic beverages
lobbied for more frequent inspections of food and poultry facilities
got many restaurants to lower their use of trans fats (i don’t know where you heard that CSPI raised trans fats, but perhaps you should stop reading the national enquirer and start paying attention to the New York Times or the washington post. turn on the news. I’d suggest channel four or seven)
You say that Jacobson couldn’t even manage humorous banter with Colbert, though he did quite well, given the circumstances. Most guests are completely ripped to shreds, where Jacobson was able to hold his own while faced with Colbert’s ruthless jabs.
By all means, go ahead and keep bashing Dr. Jacobson, but when you get heart failure and diabetes, just remember that Dr. Jacobson warned you.
ps: since your so keen on insulting him, why not learn how to spell his name correctly hmm?
Comment by Madison — July 5, 2008 @ 8:17 am